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Nashoba avenges loss to Panthers

Sentinel & Enterprise

Updated:
02/16/2013 06:31:09 PM EST

BOLTON -- The Nashoba Regional boys' basketball team channeled its inner Under Armour commercial Saturday afternoon, protecting its own house and sending visiting Quabbin Regional to its third consecutive loss as the Chieftains captured their penultimate game of the regular season with a 58-47 victory.

The win lifts Nashoba to 11-8 on the season with Narragansett Regional coming to Route 117 Tuesday evening before the Chieftains find out who they will play in the sectional tournament.

Quabbin, which has clinched a share of the Mid-Wach B title, dropped to 11-8. The Panthers had knocked off Nashoba by more than 35 points when the teams met in Barre earlier this season. Suffice it to say, the Chieftains weren't going to let that happen again.

Nashoba implemented a stiff triangle-and-two defense against Quabbin and took advantage of a Panther offense that simply couldn't hit the ocean if it jumped overboard in the fourth quarter.

"We preached confidence and we shot the ball with confidence," said Nashoba head coach Danny Ortiz. "They went cold, but I think it was from our defense. Our effort was tough today, we contested shots and that was the outcome of the game.

"This was huge for us. We were embarrassed down there, so we had to come out with a little vengeance."

Quabbin shot 16 of 64 (25 percent) for the game, while shooting just 1 of 19 in the fourth quarter.

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The game was tied 40-40 entering the fourth, with the Chieftains (22 of 60 overall, 37 percent from the field) withstanding a cold spell of their own, not hitting a field goal during a stretch spanning the last two-plus minutes of the third an into the fourth until Justin Pelletier scored on a layup to make it 44-42 Nashoba with 6:25 remaining.

A minute and a half later, Ross Cressman made it a four-point game with a hoop off an offensive rebound.

Pelletier delivered with a layup with four minutes left after Travis Macko came up with a steal at the other end, before Jordan Edmonds (team-high 12 points, 10 rebounds) came up with a defensive rebound on the next Quabbin trip. Several passes led to a Pelletier-to-Macko quick dish and a layup, along with the hack and the harm. Macko (9 points, 7 rebounds) converted the old-fashioned three-point play to put the Chieftains ahead by nine, 51-42.

Edmonds would hit a driving layup after Quabbin's Mitchell Granese knocked down a pair from the charity stripe, before Granese hit the Panthers' lone field goal of the quarter.

Brady Shartner found Edmonds for a shorty on the next trip, which turned out to be the last field goal of the game.

Quabbin had started out strong, as Granese and Adam Majer combined to score the Panthers' first 11 points. But as the game evolved and Nashoba began playing a hardened defense that included some rather aggressive boxing out, it looked as if the Chieftains were ready to erase the memories of that earlier thumping.

Trailing by seven, 20-13, early in the second quarter, Nashoba came back to take a 27-26 lead into the locker room. Helping it accomplish that was an 11-2 run that saw Shartner can a 3 before Frankie Chiodo scored on an Edmonds helper.

A little more than a minute later, Chodo scored on a nifty spin move to get around a defender before Cressman scored on an offensive rebound.

Dylan Kierman would score on a second-chance opportunity for the Panthers, before Nick Campana (10 points, 11 rebounds, 3 blocks), who was all over the paint with rebounds, scored a tap-in hoop to give Nashoba a 24-22 lead.

"He's a force to be reckoned with," Ortiz said of Campana. "He's tough to defend, he's athletic, big and strong, and how he goes, we go. He's one of the best big men in Central Mass. and he proves it every day."

It seemed Nashoba would start running away with it late in the third, as Macko hit four straight from the line to break a 30-30 tie, before an Edmonds basket preceded back-to-back Schartner-to-Kevin Connolly buckets to give Nashoba an eight-point, 40-32 lead.

"We had to push the ball and beat Quabbin down the floor, and that's what Kevin did," Ortiz said. "We were able to hit him, and he was able to finish."

But scrappy Quabbin managed to make it a game over the last 2:47, with Colby Milton and Granese each hitting buckets before free throws tied the score at 40-up.

Nashoba out-rebounded Quabbin 58-40, with 18 of those being offensive rebounds.

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